Hello and welcome back to our study of the Dhammapada.
Tonight we go on to verse number 48, which reads as follows.
Which means,
Just as one who is picking flowers, with a distracted mind, wasting their time picking flowers, so too a person goes to death, so too the human beings go to death, never being satisfied by sensual desires.
meaning the ender or death takes them away under its power or they go under the power of death never being satisfied with sensual pleasures just like a person distracted by picking flowers
This is similar to 47, if you've been keeping up.
In 47, we had just as a sleeping village is carried away by a great flood.
So too, one is carried away by death, just like someone who's picking flowers.
The same beginning.
So it's a similar verse.
These are not particularly inspiring to, for most of us, it sounds kind of like a negative teaching that we're talking about.
Anyway, we'll go over it and we'll try to make it inspiring.
Hopefully it will inspire us to find something other than just sensual pleasure.
So, but first the story.
This is a story that I like to tell often.
It's another one of these angel stories, so if you're not into supernatural things or things that seem supernatural in the sense that we can't see them and they seem to be outside of the real world.
So maybe a word on that first.
The real world is an interesting thing.
The idea of angels existing, I mean, I don't know that angels exist, but I get the feeling they probably do.
But there's nothing to that, right?
the idea that they couldn't exist because they're outside of objective reality.
It's important to touch on it briefly.
I don't want to make this a metaphysical talk or talk on metaphysics, but
We look around and we don't see angels.
We see the hard floor.
We feel the hard floor.
We see light.
We see human beings and we see animals and so we think, well, even with our strongest detecting instruments, we can't see angels.
And so we come to think that the world is nothing more than a physical course, place or sphere of existence.
But the idea of the existence of angels, so it seems that the immediate conclusion is that if there are angels, gods or God, this creator God, then they must be outside of the observable universe or outside of the known universe.
They must be undetectable and therefore the same as non-existent.
But in Buddhism we don't look at reality from that point of view.
We don't jump to the conclusion that this three-dimensional reality is actually out there.
we see reality as beginning from experience so here if you look you know you have seeing you have hearing if you smell if you taste experiences arise this is how we understand as the basis of reality and so the idea of
experiences or beings that experience things in a different way from this.
It's not just speculation, it accords with the observation of our own reality when you sit in meditation and you look in quite detail at the arising and ceasing phenomena.
you start to get an idea of the depth or the breadth of possibility in regards to experience.
Some people, when they're meditating, they have out-of-body experiences.
Some people hear things very far away or enter into mystical states.
If you listen to people who have these meditative journeys, they start to experience things in
in very strange ways.
People who are on drugs, for example, take hallucinogenic drugs or DMT or these crazy drugs that just experience things that are so different from our ordinary experience.
You don't need drugs to do this.
Actually, meditation brings you to some very strange and exotic experiences and helps you to see
That what we think of as reality, this physical reality, is only conventional.
It's only because we're so stuck in it, routinely stuck in it.
So, we come to see that the step from a human to an angel is only a matter of degree.
It's not categorically different.
If this reality changes as our
Experience changes.
It can become that reality.
So an angel and a human being, they can move back and forth.
This is still just a theory.
You have to experience it through meditation to agree or disagree with that.
But it touches on the understanding of how could such a thing be possible.
It's not like this universe and then angel universe.
It's only a difference of degree or a difference of coarseness and refinement of consciousness or of experience.
so I'm not trying to prove that angels exist or even hint at the proof of it but try to help to understand what is an angel it's just another being or it's even us we can shift in that direction and to some extent you can feel this even in a human physical material sense
You can feel that when you engage in unwholesome activities, if you're meditating, if you're sensitive enough, you can feel how sensual lust, how anger and hatred, how these things
really actually drag you down and make you more coarse, make you more, I would say, in tune in some sense with the coarse material world, more sensitive to noises, more sensitive to pain, more sensitive to conflict.
You become dragged down into
the world of pain, the world of suffering.
On the other hand if you engage in wholesome activities, people who engage in charity, in generosity, in morality, in meditation, in helping other people,
in sharing with other people, in being grateful and respectful, find themselves lighter, feel more refined.
And their whole experience of reality changes.
This is on a very small degree.
So it's not yet proof of anything particular, but it gives you an idea of what we're talking about.
So what we mean by angels is just a being who's gone to that degree.
and at the shedding of this human body the next wave of existence is on another level on a different level as opposed to someone with a course experience at the shedding of this body will go to a course experience so some idea about angels anyway that's not the story that's the boring part now it gets interesting so the story goes
I can't remember where the story starts, but the story goes that there was an angel up in heaven, two angels up in heaven, a male angel and a female angel.
And they were husband and wife.
And there were so many angels.
playing basically, enjoying themselves in heavenly parks.
In heaven you don't have to go to school, you see.
You just play all day.
You don't have to go to work, so you don't have to know how to work.
You don't have to study math anymore, or science.
All those years of study that you had to do to become doctors, useless up in heaven.
Waste of time.
But you have so much time up in heaven is the other thing.
So you could, if you wanted to learn Pali, it would be very easy to learn Pali.
We had this question from my teacher once.
Because one teacher had said, one...
theoretical how do you say a study teacher who's a book teacher monk he had said that in heaven everyone speaks Pali I think is what he said and we're trying to figure out how that could be possible you know if a person dies should they just suddenly know Pali or something and and so I was trying to see how is it really true that when you go to heaven everyone speaks Pali or something like that I can't I had some some strange idea like that
And so we asked my teacher and he said, well they just learn Pali.
They can speak whatever language they want.
The question was, what language do they speak in heaven?
He said, well kids learn how to speak in two years.
In heaven you live for how many?
Hundreds of thousands of years.
So you can learn whatever you want in heaven.
But sad to say, most people up in heaven don't spend much time learning.
They just spend a lot of time playing.
So even after hundreds of thousands of years, they still don't know anything.
Because there's no need to.
So they die kind of, often it sounds like they die kind of stupid.
They die without really, just like a lot of human beings actually.
We die not really having learned anything.
Maybe we learned some math and some physics.
But many people die without really understanding themselves.
Right?
Like how many knuckles do you have on one hand?
Joints was the word.
They're not knuckles, are they?
Joints is the word.
No, I keep telling this story.
I heard it originally from this man.
He said, this monk, that monk actually, the monk who's up on her mantelpiece.
He said, so I asked this woman, 95 years old, how many joints do you have on one hand?
She didn't know.
He said, you've been around 95 years old, you still don't know how many joints you have on one hand.
This is how well we know ourselves.
It's an example.
So it's not important to know how many joints you have on one hand, but it is important to know yourself, to understand yourself, to understand why we suffer, how our mind works, how we can use our minds to bring happiness or to bring suffering.
how we can free ourselves from stress, from boredom, from dissatisfaction, from greed, from wanting, from conceit, from arrogance, from attachment to views and so on.
from fear, from worry and doubt.
How can we free ourselves from these things?
It's just worth knowing.
In heaven, they don't do much of that.
They just spend all their time playing.
So how do they play?
Well, I think if I remember correctly, half the angels will stay at the bottom of the trees.
I think I've told this part before.
half the angels go up into the trees and they throw flowers down.
They're singing and dancing.
I don't know what their songs are, some kind of something like Sesame Street or something.
You tell me how to get to heaven.
And so they drop flowers, throw the flowers down and they play games like that.
And
So this woman, the wife angel, she's with them playing, and her husband's there playing as well, and this is in the morning.
They go out in the morning after they eat, or I'm not sure how often they eat, but they eat.
In heaven, when you eat food, it doesn't come out.
You just use it all.
You don't have to ever go to, you don't have to shower, you don't have to go to the toilet ever.
You just eat what you want, whatever you want, however much you want.
And the food there,
There was Anuruddha once, got some heavenly cakes because he had made a vow never to hear the word Natti.
You know the story of Anuruddha?
Anuruddha, he made a vow when he gave food to a Pacheca Buddha, may I never hear the word Natti.
And he never heard the word Natti until his past life.
And then his mother sent him some cakes for all his friends because they were playing marbles, right?
And he lost marbles.
And they bet.
And the bet is cakes.
And so he asked his mother to bring some cakes.
His mother sent some cakes.
He lost again.
Bring some cakes.
Third time he lost again.
No cakes.
So she said, go and tell my son there aren't any cakes.
And servants went and said, not tea.
What do you mean?
Well, you asked for cakes.
And your mother said the answer was not tea.
Well, then bring some na'ati cakes.
I don't care.
That's fine.
Na'ati means there aren't any.
Na'ati means there is.
Na'ati means there are not.
There is not.
And so he went back and the mother said, he doesn't even know the word na'ati.
He's never heard this word.
He's always been given everything he wants.
That's what it means.
He never had to hear the word there aren't any.
You want something?
Okay, you can have whatever you want.
All his life.
I said, well, I have to teach my son a lesson.
That's what she said.
She said, I have to teach him what this Nati means.
And so she took a silver, a gold platter and a gold lid and nothing inside and sent it with the servants and said, go and tell my son this is what Nati means.
And up in heaven, the angels, heaven started shaking.
And the angels looked down and they said, oh, this is not good.
He made a vow never to hear the word Nati, or never to know what Nati means anyway.
We can't let this happen.
So they brought some angel food cake.
Real, like no, not the stuff you buy in stores, but real angel cake.
And they put it under the lid.
And they sent it.
And it went along to him.
And when it got to Anuruddha, he opened it up.
And whoa, the smell filled the whole playground.
Just the smell alone was incredible.
And then they tasted it.
And they never tasted, of course, never tasted such a thing.
And Anuruddha got up.
And he got very angry.
He stormed back home right in the middle of the game and he went, flung open the door and he looked at his mom and he said, you don't love me.
And she was like, oh dear, now we have to talk about this.
What do you mean, son?
If you'd love me, you would have given me nutty cakes before today.
You never gave me them before.
That's proof that you didn't love me until today.
How could you?
He said, from now on, I will eat nothing but nutty cakes.
And he stormed back to the playground.
And she thought to herself, what could have happened?
She thought, angels must have given him some special cakes.
And so whenever he asked for nutty cakes, he would just send an empty tray just like that.
And the angels would always fill it up with cakes.
Unfortunately, that sort of thing doesn't happen to us.
I've never tried it, actually.
But I've heard the word, there isn't any, before.
But that's how good the food is in heaven.
Much better than McDonald's or Pizza Hut.
Much healthier too.
But okay, so in the morning they went out and started playing their games in the beautiful gardens, beautiful forests with no mosquitoes, no snow, unless they wanted it.
And it would be snow like cotton candy.
It would never be cold.
It would just fall.
It would be very tasty, you know.
There's no suffering in heaven.
Just pure bliss.
And then this angel felt something strange.
And she looked at her clothes, and her clothes were starting to fade, and the flowers in her dress, the garland of flowers, and the flowers in her hair.
She looked down and saw they were wilting, dying.
And she thought, this has never happened before.
Flowers in heaven don't wilt.
And I think she would feel the sweat in her armpits.
That's never happened before.
Those are the signs that an angel is dying.
Because after thousands and thousands, hundreds of thousands of years, the angels die as well.
And she died and disappeared from heaven.
And everybody else was playing and didn't even notice.
Too many people.
You can't count everyone.
Too many angels having too much fun.
And she was born as a little girl in Savatthi, I think.
Somewhere near the Buddha, probably Savatthi.
And she remembered being up in heaven.
Oh, and she cried.
And she thought to herself, how can I get back to heaven?
And she tried.
She realized the only reason she went to heaven was because of all the good deeds she'd done in her past.
And so she made a vow to do good deeds her whole life.
to never get angry, to never get upset.
And she vowed to help and to give.
And so she was so kind and helpful to her parents and to her friends.
And she was very careful never to speak in angry words, always thinking about her husband, she would say, my husband, thinking about my husband.
And so quickly they got her married.
They said, oh, well, she wants a husband.
And when she was married, she would always give gifts and donate donations to the monks.
When the monks came for alms, she would always put food in their bowl and dedicate it to her husband.
And they thought, wow, here's someone who's really dedicated to her husband.
This is pretty incredible.
So they called her Patti Pujika.
This was her name.
Patti means husband.
Pujika means one who worships or who reverences their husband.
They thought, well, this is, wow, she's really paying respect to her husband.
They thought it was the human husband.
And
So they thought, well, in Hinduism, that was what you're supposed to do.
So they thought, well, she's really being a good Hindu wife, paying respect, worshipping her husband.
It's not really particularly Buddhist to worship another person, but it's kind of interesting.
So that's what they called her, the woman who worshipped her husband.
And so her whole life she was very, she would always go and keep the eight precepts at the monastery and she practiced meditation.
Lived her life to be 60, 70 years old.
And she had children, I think two children or four children, many children.
And then she was working so hard at the monastery one day that she fell over and had some kind of, I can't remember what the condition was, some indigestion maybe or maybe just a heart problem.
And she fell over and died.
And immediately she was born back up in heaven, in the same heaven.
Only now, when she left, what time was it?
When she died from heaven, what did I say?
Was it morning?
Yeah, after breakfast they went out to play and they were out there for an hour or two in the morning.
When she got back, you know what time it was?
It was afternoon, same day.
And it was like, oh, the husband comes up and says, oh, I didn't see you.
Where did you go this morning?
I didn't see you all morning.
And she said, I died.
What are you talking about?
It's true.
Where were you reborn?
In Savatthi on earth.
How long did you live there?
70 years.
70 years on earth is a few hours in heaven, he said.
And she said, yes.
He said, wow.
And he thought about it, and it really, really hit him.
He realized, how short is the life of a human being?
Wow, considering how short it is, they must really put effort into doing good deeds, no?
Human beings must spend all their time running around helping each other and being kind and generous and keeping the precepts and giving alms and practicing meditation because they know that they're going to die in a few hours, very quickly.
He said, right?
What do you think?
Do we?
Do human beings, does the whole world spend all their time doing good deeds?
Yeah.
Yeah?
We don't go to war or hurt each other or fight or argue?
Are we thinking about heaven and doing good deeds to go to heaven?
Yeah.
Really?
Not you.
I know you are.
But I mean people in general, humanity in general.
She said no.
No, they're acting like they have millions of years to live.
They're acting like angels.
They act just like us.
They think they have all this time to live.
She said, they don't spend any time, hardly any time doing good deeds.
It's all, what can I get?
How can I get it?
Once I got it, how can I get more of it?
Never satisfied.
I've got a Nintendo.
Now I want a Nintendo 64.
Super Nintendo, no?
Super Nintendo?
That was a Nintendo 64.
I don't even think you know what those are.
Those are my type.
A Nintendo 64, and I want the next one, the Wii, right?
Then the Wii, and now there's something else.
I don't know.
All right.
Always more and more food.
entertainment.
And he heard this, and he was, wow, incredible.
How is it?
They only have such a short lifespan, and they spend all their time just entertaining themselves.
Unbelievable, these human beings.
And they went back to playing.
They went back to enjoying themselves, because we've got hundreds of thousands of years to live.
We're not going to die.
The Buddha said, I was just reading now, he said, when the lion comes out of its den in the evening, it yawns.
And then it stretches itself, and then it roars.
It latched forth.
terrible roar that scares everyone.
It scares the humans, it scares the animals, all the birds fly up, even the elephants, the Buddha said, safe in the castle, even the king's elephants safe in the castle in their stalls will run around, will break out of their bonds and urinate and defecate and get all afraid when they hear the lion roar in the wilderness.
That's how powerful is the lion's roar.
Scares the willies out of everyone.
The Buddha said in the same way, when the Buddha teaches the Dhamma, teaches the impermanence of all things, even the angels up in heaven get afraid.
These angels who run around thinking they're at the top of the world, and they realize we too are subject to impermanence.
We too are subject to decay.
We too are a part of this sakkaya, the Buddha said, the sakkaya.
And we also are a part of this formed existence that is not permanent, that is not stable, and is not eternal.
Because angels forget this and humans forget this.
I'm going to live forever.
There was a song, I'm going to live forever.
It's kind of stupid, no?
Why would you sing such a thing, I'm going to live forever?
Unless you were joking.
Because we all know that we're not going to live forever.
Yet we act like it sometimes.
We don't ever think about this.
So this angel, it's very interesting what he said, no?
Why don't these humans think about this, considering how quickly days go by?
You think a day is long.
24 hours, that's a long time.
But how many days have gone by?
How quickly the days go by?
You sit here and look at these weeks go by.
Everyone comes back again every week, every week.
Wow, how quickly.
And yet we don't, well people in general don't, they never think, how many people would never think to practice meditation?
Why are you wasting your time meditating?
Go, enjoy your life, live forever.
This is what they say.
So then back down on earth.
The monks found out about this woman dying and they said, wow, she was a really interesting woman, always respecting her husband.
I wonder what that was about.
Why?
Her husband was just an ordinary guy.
He wasn't really interested in good deeds himself.
I wonder why she was worshiping him so much, always saying, this is for my husband.
This is that I may be with my husband when I die and so on.
And the Buddha heard what they were saying and said, what are you talking about?
And they said, oh, we're just talking about Patipujika.
How she really worshipped her husband.
And he said, well, it wasn't her husband on earth.
It was her husband that she just left a few hours earlier in heaven.
And she wanted to go back and be with him.
And why not?
Because up in heaven.
And he told them the story.
And they said, a few hours?
She was alive for 70 years.
Is it really like that?
One day up in heaven is 100 years on Earth.
Something like that.
It was interesting.
I was talking about this earlier, how Einstein's theory of relativity
The faster you go, the slower time goes.
The point being that time is somehow relative.
It's not what we're saying here, but there's this interesting thing where time isn't the same everywhere.
What seems like a hundred years here is actually just a day up in heaven.
There's another reason why someone asked about...
Angels.
Why you never see angels?
Why do you never see angels?
It's on this topic.
First reason is because an angel can smell a human being a thousand leagues away.
We smell really bad and angels won't come anywhere near us.
It's true apparently.
A thousand leagues.
So if you're wondering, why don't I ever see angels?
You need a shower.
But the second, this is another reason, is that when people die, why don't they think of us and come back and say, hey, I'm up in heaven, do lots of good deeds and come up and be with me in heaven.
It's so much fun up here.
We get to play with flowers all day.
Why doesn't anyone ever do that?
Why don't you ever have people come back?
Okay, well, suppose you die and you go up to heaven.
What's the first thing you'd do?
play right at least for one day come on you know you can always tomorrow you can always go and tell your your friends and family right and then what happens when you wake up the next day and say oh i gotta go tell my friends and family they're all dead that's the second reason why we don't ever have angels come and tell us about heaven
By the time they think of it, it's probably for most people, it's not the first day, like, eh, next week.
Go back and nuclear holocaust or something.
Maybe I won't go back.
Silly humans.
So the monks said the same thing.
They said, wow, it's amazing.
And it's amazing that people don't realize this and don't actually take the time to do something useful with their lives.
They die as useless as when they were born.
So then the Buddha said, yes, this is true.
People go to death chasing after, chasing after sensual pleasures, just like someone picking flowers.
Just as though we were spending our whole lives picking flowers.
Is that a useful life?
Spend your whole life picking flowers?
Huh?
You're listening?
Is it a good life to pick flowers?
You just spend your life picking flowers.
Sensual pleasures are like picking flowers.
I talked about this last time.
There's something wrong with picking flowers, doesn't seem, but there's nothing useful to picking flowers.
The main point is it doesn't change you.
It doesn't make you happier.
This is what we have to talk about.
We have to understand what this phrase means, make you happier.
We say, well, picking flowers makes me happy.
Because it's our only understanding of happiness is sensual pleasure.
We understand that that moment of pleasure is happiness.
And we don't look and see what that happiness means, what the
consequences of that of enjoying that happiness are it's not some horrendous thing where suddenly the sky falls but it creates addiction it creates attachment so you need you want and you need more to be happy
So if anyone says it makes you happy, well, in what sense does it make you happy?
If you're talking about that one moment, then okay, it makes you happy.
We have to ask, does it make you happier?
In the sense of, in general, do you become a happier person because of it?
Is it something that makes you happier or makes you more peaceful?
And we find that actually it doesn't even make you as happy as before.
It doesn't even leave you as happy as before.
It leaves you less happy, less satisfied.
That's why when we sit here, we can't be happy.
Not all the time anyway, because we're not happy.
If picking flowers makes you happy, then we should try it.
We can go out and pick flowers all day and then come back and sit in here and see how happy we are.
We can be happy thinking about all those flowers we picked.
But what if we had to sit here for an hour listening to someone drone on about angels and death and stuff?
How happy would we be then?
Just like someone picking flowers with a distracted mind.
We go to death without ever finding, without ever becoming satisfied, unsatisfied with sensual pleasures.
There are things on the other hand that do make us happier.
that when we go out and do them, if we went outside and did these things, we would come back in here and sit down and we would find ourselves happier.
So if we went and split the group up into two and half of us will go out and pick flowers and the other half will go out and give gifts to homeless people.
Or go out and meditate.
Practice meditation all day.
Let's try that.
How many people would volunteer for the meditation?
I don't know.
Most people are like, okay, flowers.
I can come up for that.
Just pick flowers all day.
Because either way, you end up with a stiff back, picking flowers or meditating.
But at least with flowers, you've got some flowers.
The reason we're born as human beings is because we've conditioned ourselves to chase after sensual pleasure.
The idea of meditating is somewhat repulsive to us because of our nature, because of what's led us to be born human.
And yet, when we do meditate, it does make us happy.
We do come back in here and we are at peace.
Very difficult.
The Buddha said it's very difficult to enjoy those things that actually make you happy.
It's very difficult to enjoy solitude.
Today I went back into the field.
All the snow's gone for the first time.
And so I walked all the way across the field behind our property.
And I saw one of the trees had steps in it.
Sounds magical, no?
One of the trees had steps.
What do you think that was?
What was it?
I don't know what it was.
Well, in November, these wonderful humans that are so intent on doing good deeds go up into these trees and sit there and wait.
They sit very still up in these trees.
Sounds crazy, doesn't it?
Think they're meditating up there?
People do this in Canada.
You never heard of this?
No?
And they go up and sit in these grown men, not children, this isn't a tree house.
And you know what they bring with them?
Guns.
And they sit up in these trees and they shoot whatever moves.
They get really drunk and I don't know what they do here in Ontario.
They get so drunk that you're afraid to go out of your house.
You have to wear something like this.
This kind of looks like a deer, I don't know.
It's the only time those bright, bright orange robes are any good.
The ones they wear in Bangkok may be good during that time.
Maybe I'll have to get some for that period here.
Because right behind us we've got two of them.
One's on our side and the other's on the other side.
So I went up in one of them.
I didn't bring a gun.
And I was way up in the trees and practiced meditation.
I've done that before in my house, because I used to hunt when I was young.
And then to make up for it, I decided to go up and meditate in the tree.
to give my apologies to the deer and to the forest.
So I went and did that now and practiced meditation there.
It's amazing that we can't find happiness doing that.
Sitting on a tree, nothing, no worries, no cares, no wants, no burdens besides having to come back and tell a story to some people, nice people.
So this is a call to arms, so to speak.
This verse, it's a reminder that we don't have so much time to live.
Our lives are not near as long as we think.
And if we're not
If we don't take the time to, if we don't spend our time wisely, we'll die never being satisfied.
We'll die never having satisfied our desires, never having found contentment.
Death will take us under its control.
So meditation is for the purpose of changing this, changing our conditioning.
Changing our conditioning from being bored when there's nothing pleasant,
Being satisfied no matter what is pleasant, being content no matter what we get, whether we get nothing at all, even if we get nothing at all.
It's amazing, you know, when you study the Buddha's teaching and then you look and you see how unsatisfied we are just sitting here, how unpleasant it is.
We're just in this room together, really, you see.
And even if I'm talking about good things, I can only keep your attention for so long before wandering back to something more pleasant.
This is the state that we're in.
This is what we have to look at.
We can't even be here, happy.
We need something.
And we think right away.
You think, what are you, crazy?
If I want to be happy, I need my Xbox.
I need my Game Boy.
Do you still have Game Boy?
No, it's old, no?
I need my computer.
I need my Walkman to listen to music.
I know some kids who just always have their music on.
Take that out of your ear.
Some kids, you know.
This one kid, he would follow me on alms round in Los Angeles.
He always had this in his ear.
How could you be happy without that?
How could I expect you to find happiness?
Everyone should put these things in their ears and then they'll be happy, right?
And you wouldn't have to listen to me anyway.
No, you won't be happy.
He's very unhappy, this boy.
It's a good example.
Oh, you can see how miserable he was.
Like a drug addict.
And they couldn't
At home, he was useless.
He wouldn't do anything.
He wouldn't do his schoolwork.
He wouldn't do his chores.
He has no respect for his parents.
So they sent him away to Thailand.
And I was in Thailand when he was there this last year.
Julian's here, this kid from Los Angeles.
I don't suppose he'll be watching this.
And they said, oh, well, bring him to come and bring him to meditate with me.
Oh, we can't take him.
It's just...
totally useless and disrespectful and just sits around and does nothing.
I'll send him up here to meditate.
No, we're sending him back to Los Angeles.
Nothing.
No one could handle him.
You think this is what we get?
This is the result?
This is why we're stuffing our ears with these overpriced gadgets?
Ask yourself, why are you here?
Don't ask Steve Jobs.
He doesn't have the answer.
He wasn't Buddhist.
I don't believe it.
Anyone who says that doesn't understand Buddhism.
I'm a little bit biased.
I guess he was a nice guy to his family.
But I don't mean Steve Jobs.
I mean that whole culture of buy, get.
oh push button it's like this is what we've this is what the pinnacle of the human race is to push a button a single button it only has one button I've seen them I mean come on I thought it was like oh look I've got a keyboard it's got 128 keys that's cool I've got a button touch screen
You've got these talking cats.
It talks back to you.
I've seen them.
Cutting fruit.
There's something about cutting fruit.
Isn't that like enlightenment?
That's like, wow.
This is where the human race is going, right?
This is evolution.
Fruit ninja.
Angry birds.
Some angry birds.
This is what life is all about, right?
No, we call these things past times.
That's what entertainment means, right?
Enter means in between.
Entre temps.
Entertain.
Tain comes from time, I guess.
It's from French.
So French.
Entre temps.
Which means between times.
When you're not doing anything.
When you're waiting for something.
Angry bird.
Push the button.
Past time.
Because we've got too much time, right?
No, we don't have enough time.
Think of what the angels are doing.
What are you doing down there?
We smell so bad, they don't want to come and tell us, but they're like, I feel sorry for those guys.
There's angels right up in heaven right now thinking about us, how stupid we are.
How much we're wasting our time playing Fruit Ninja.
Think about that.
Don't you have something better to do with your life than become addicted to meaningless activities?
Apparently not.
It's not easy.
I'm not trying to make light of this.
This is a very difficult thing.
We've been conditioned.
We've conditioned ourselves into this.
And everything conditions us.
The television, advertisement, society.
My friends have one.
I gotta get one.
My friends do that.
I should do that.
Well, if your friends jumped off a bridge, would you?
No, I heard a reply to that.
The answer is yes.
Yes?
Well, yes, because all my friends are quite smart.
I mean, if all of you jumped off a bridge, I think there must be a very good reason for jumping off the bridge.
Maybe there's a fire.
Maybe there's an explosion.
I should jump off the bridge with you.
Just make sure you've got smart friends.
That's really the problem.
We lead each other in the wrong direction.
It's an interesting reply, because if we have good friends, we'll lead each other in the right direction.
That's why we're here.
So if I jumped off a bridge, you might think, hmm, maybe there's a reason for jumping off the bridge.
I think that monk's gone crazy.
But when you hang out with good people, then they lead you in good places.
You get to hear good stories and good teachings.
And you get to practice good things.
So now we've heard good things, we've heard good Dhamma, so next up is to practice good things.
So we'll try to put this into practice and spend some time learning about ourselves.
Try to find your suffering.
Try to fight with your suffering.
Like Darth Vader.
Obi-Wan Kenobi fighting with Darth Vader.
Fight with your suffering.
Don't let it overpower you.
That was the most powerful line in all those movies.
I only saw the first, the original three.
And the first one.
He says, you can't win.
If you kill me, you'll only make me stronger.
He says to Darth Vader, did you ever see the first Star Wars?
He says, he's fighting with Darth, you know Darth Vader?
Obi-Wan Kenobi is fighting with him and he says, you can't win, Darth.
If you kill me, you'll only make me stronger than you can ever imagine or something like that.
And that describes an enlightened being.
An enlightened being isn't afraid of death.
You can't win.
This is exactly it.
Antakau kurute warang.
Antako means the ender.
It's just a word that means ender, which means the one who puts an end to life.
So it's death or the king of death or something that's personified death.
It brings them under their power.
But for a person who is free from attachment, they don't go under the power of death.
Death only leads them up, like this woman who had done so many good deeds.
Death was what she was waiting for.
She wouldn't kill herself.
That's not good.
If you kill yourself, that's a negative thing.
That's an attachment.
So she just did as much good, got her mind so free from desire, free from any clinging, that she soared up to heaven.
like on a horse for such people they're not afraid of death and death can't kill them death can't bring them under its power so that's the story for tonight that's the teaching for tonight let's try to study ourselves and find some happiness find out what really makes us happy it's not this okay thank you for tuning in